


Blood Like Candy

by stillskies



Series: there and back again [2]
Category: Gouhou Drug | Legal Drug, X/1999, xxxHoLic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-10
Updated: 2012-04-10
Packaged: 2017-11-03 09:25:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillskies/pseuds/stillskies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When he opens his eyes again, he is dead.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Like Candy

**Author's Note:**

> Follows directly from [The Path Less Traveled](http://archiveofourown.org/works/300242). If you haven't read that, then this might not make much sense to you.

When he opens his eyes again, he is dead. The world around him is awash in vibrant color – every shade of red imaginable assaults his eyes at every turn, and his glasses do little to mute the loudness. The beginnings of a headache stirs between his eyes, but he ignores it; the pain is nowhere near the worst he has experienced, and therefore inconsequential.

His clothes are still intact, but he can tell that his pockets are empty. Unfortunate, but not the end of the world. He has plenty of tricks up his sleeve to get the information that he’s searching for, and he’s resourceful enough to find his way back to the Doumeki shrine, where his body waits. Minor setbacks are expected; after all, nothing goes smoothly, and that's one of the few certainties in his line of work.

The area is devoid of anything he can see save flowers and greenery, but it is not empty. He can feel another presence, hiding just beyond his sight. Watching. He decides to ignore the presence for the moment to get a better feel of his surroundings; the presence seems content to observe, and Saiga is not a foolish man.

It takes a moment to realize that there is no sunlight; the area is lit by a dim glow. The sky is dark and cloudless, but there is no moon. He is in the middle of a garden; it is fenced in on three sides, and the fourth side looks to be an entrance to a small house. If he needs to make a quick escape, he could vault the fence to his left where it is lowest, but there is something about the dimness of his surroundings that makes him think the air above the fence would be solid.

Despite the lack of light, the colors that assaulted him on his arrival stand vibrant as ever. If anything, the twilight makes the colors louder, more eye-catching. He moves forward and reaches for a flower – it is a cheerful red, the color of syrupy movie blood. Next to it is a flower of a deeper shade; burgundy, the color of true blood. The edges of the blood flower are darker than near the center, and the petals look like they are dripping to the blindingly white granite beneath his feet. The glare from the granite makes Saiga think that the pale moon-like light is coming from below.

“They are very pretty, aren’t they?”

The voice comes from behind him; there is no malevolence radiating from it, just curiosity. He doesn’t turn around. His finger touches the petal and he frowns at the wet feel of it. His finger comes back smeared with red.

“It’s difficult to keep them that color,” the voice muses, and Saiga turns around.

The girl standing before him feels older than she looks; she is dressed in a black kimono with red stitched flowers. It is a bit big and a patch of pale shoulder peeks from beneath her ebony hair. Her lips are stained red, her eyes lined in kohl. She is gorgeous in an ethereal way, but something about her eyes makes the hair on the back of this neck stand up.

“I imagine blood would be hard to come by when you’re dead,” Saiga replies with a shrug.

She smiles like she’s hiding a secret. “The dead bleed.”

Saiga shrugs again; he wouldn’t know. He wipes his hand on his pants and watches the girl watch him.

After a moment, the girl frowns. “You are looking for someone.” He nods. “She is not here.”

This doesn't surprise him; he had been expecting this, a go-between, someone new to deal with. "Do you know where she is?"

The girl watches him as he moves to sit on the porch. He has a feeling he'll be here a while, and he has always been the type to make himself comfortable during long waits. She turns away from him after a moment and picks a rose from the bush, slowly lifting it to her mouth and pulling a petal from it with her teeth. The blood mixes with her lip paint and stains the porcelain of her chin; none of this seems to bother her as she chews. He can trace the path of the petal with his eyes as she swallows.

"She is in the between place," she says suddenly, licking the blood from her lips. "The place where the not-dead and not-living dwell, where the dead and the living cannot enter."

She is still smiling at him and he smiles back, despite the unease her presence brings. "You know how to get there." It isn't a question, and her smile widens.

"Perhaps," she allows, moving towards him. When she is close enough, her hand reaches out to cup his cheek. He stays still as she caresses and traces his cheekbone with her sharp, sharp nails. She adds a little pressure, and he can feel blood welling beneath her finger. "It has been so, so long," she adds, and there is a dreamy quality to her voice, the same tone that Kakei gets when he goes far away to the place where he _sees_. She slowly withdraws her hand and licks the blood from her finger. A shudder runs through her, and suddenly her eyes are clear, the dreamlike fog gone. "We shall play a game."

Saiga nods.

***

It is simple enough to play. There are things she remembers and things she doesn't, things she knows and things she does not. In a way, she is not unlike Kakei and his secret smiles and wise eyes. (Except that Saiga knows the secrets, shares them with Kakei so that Kakei doesn’t break under the weight of them. He doesn't think that the girl can sort out the secrets from her dreams, the lies from the truth.) 

She has laid three roses in front of him. "Pick the one that will help you," she told him before disappearing into the house.

He is not allowed to touch – touching ends the game, and even if the rules are simple, it is often the simplest games that are the most difficult to win. It would be easy to remove his glasses and really _look_ at them, but somehow, he thinks this would be cheating. She does not seem to want to trap him here, so he assumes that someone that isn't him would be able to see, to pick out the real rose from the fakes. 

Except that they are all real. The fragrance assaults him, and he can pick out the three separate scents; one is sweeter than the rest, sweet like candy. He remembers Valentine's Day and the pink and red and white displays in the store. He thinks of the heart-shaped boxes and the candied roses.

He picks the rose to his left.

"That will take you there and back again," the girl says in his ear. "But only on a certain day, with a certain moon. There is only one entrance, and one escape."

Saiga stares at the candied rose in his hand and nods. 

He is almost to the hedge when her voice reaches him again. He turns and flashes her a smile, and then disappears.

_I will see you again._

***

His body is stiff and the room is dark, but he is back, alive, here. The candied rose is in his hand.

"Welcome back."

Saiga rubs his forehead and looks towards the voice. "Thanks," he says, and Doumeki nods before turning on a light. 

"Drink this," he says a moment later and hands Saiga a drink. "It'll help."

He's not sure what it's supposed to help with, but he shrugs and downs the liquid. It tastes vile, but he immediately feels less stiff, less lethargic. He nods, and Doumeki nods back. "How long was I out?"

"A week."

It didn't feel that long, but he supposes that time passes differently in the world of the dead. He wonders what the world in between will feel like. He will have to see Watanuki again, soon; he's not sure when the door will open, but he can't afford to miss it. Doumeki is watching him, and Saiga flashes him a smile. "I'll get out of your hair now. Thanks for the room."

***

Kakei is waiting for him when he enters the shop. "Welcome home."

Saiga grins. "I'm back."

He lets Kakei lead him to the back, and as soon as the door is closed, he wraps his arms around Kakei's waist and pulls him close. Kakei leans against him, and they stay like that for a moment, quiet and still and warm. Saiga lowers his head and brushes a kiss against Kakei's neck, and then Kakei pulls away, a smile on his lips and a gleam in his eyes. "You will need to see Watanuki-kun."

Saiga nods. "I figure I can go tomorrow. Being dead is hard work. I feel like I've earned my rest."

"Tomorrow, then," Kakei agrees and leads him to the couch.

Before Saiga lies down, he hands Kakei the candied rose. Kakei takes it gingerly and stares at it for a moment before moving to the desk. There is a kerchief on top, and Kakei carefully wraps the flower in it before placing it in a drawer. They are the only ones who use the desk, so it is safe; he will take it to the shop tomorrow, because he's fairly certain that he won't be able to go himself, and that it will need to be farmed out to someone else, and he's sure that Watanuki will already have someone in mind. 

He's almost asleep when he feels Kakei's fingers threading through his hair, and he smiles before pulling Kakei down for a proper kiss. Kakei indulges him for a moment, then pulls away. "Get some rest."

The door closes and Saiga is asleep.


End file.
